The Idiocy of Carpool Lanes

I understand that scientists believe that we are putting the earth into an oven and turning up the heat too high. I’m keeping their warnings in mind and making rational decisions with this information. When I have saved enough to make a down payment on a house, I’ll be looking for my beachfront property several miles inland.

While I realize the need to find solutions to reduce the amount of fossil fuels we burn, carpool lanes are a freaking idiotic solution that piss me off to no end. No matter how good carpool lanes may make tree huggers feel, the fact is that they promote global warming rather than help fight against it.

A carpool lane is convenient for me. I have the free pass your sister does, and sometimes I actually have a friend with me. Now this is all a moot point in that I live far from any cities large emough for carpool lanes. I do visit Denver on occasion. One word of warning, it IS possible to end up in a closed diamond-lane just by making one wrong decision, pray traffic isn’t coming your way if you end up there.

We don’t have carpool lanes in these parts (Philly/NJ/Delaware area) but we do encounter them around DC when we drive to Florida each year. I love them. Rather than being stuck in bumper to bumper traffic all through the DC area, we get to zip past miles and miles of traffic in the carpool lanes since there are 3 of us in the van.

I do agree, though, that they really don’t accomplish anything as far as saving energy or reducing global warming is concerned.

I didn’t realize SavingAdvice.com’s daily blog would be hurting so much after Shannon Christman’s departure.

It’s simple: carpool, bus, or take a motorcycle to ride in the carpool lane. The fewer cars on the road, the more gas or oil and money are saved, and the faster the commute gets.

Maybe my perspective comes from living in a city that has the third worst rush-hour traffic in the nation.

And I don’t get the “it’s unAmerican” bit either: how many US movies have you seen where characters meet sharing a cab in New York City? Did Thomas Alva Edison have all those patents and inventions because he was too American to bother with forward-thinking ideas?

I ride a motorcycle in the carpool lane.The $750 I pay to ride in it goes to feed and insure my scoot for a year.

I was also a passenger in a car whose occupancy was carpool-legal when we were hit by a Chevy Trailblazer commandeered by a woman who thought her big dogs counted as occupants too. She claimed the dogs weren’t obeying her commands to sit down as she illegally tried to get into the carpool lane.

This could be a good and informative article if it did not include so much bashing of other people and their ideas.

According to the author of this piece, the idea of HOV lanes is “idiotic”, “Treehuggers” are apparently misguided and out of touch with reality, and carpooling is “unamerican”. Since this classification means that I am misguided and unamerican, I resent it strongly.

Was there no way to present these ideas without name-calling and knee-jerk hostility? How about researching the effectiveness of HOV lanes (which is certainly questionable) and presenting some alternative ideas?

The HOV lanes in Denver are well used and the buses are standing room only.

Denver recently opened up the HOV lanes for single payer Tolls. I don’t have data on how much extra has been made however but I think it was a good compromise and hopefully will add some well needed highway funds.

Personally I think the ‘idiocy’ in this article is the author. It makes me happy to see that you got ticketed.

I also don’t see how this is ‘saving advice’. I don’t know how much you got paid to write this article but I would ask for the money back.

God, relax people. Have you read any of his other articles? Beer Guy makes stupid choices and mocks everyone and everything. His articles are the redneck approach to finance. Enjoy what it is; if you can’t, read something else.

They just extended the HOV lane by ONE HOUR on one of the most congested stretches in the Bay Area…WTF?

I am unpopular with friends who inhale loudly, shocked, when I say I think carpool lanes are crap. How are they helping the environment??? THEY AREN’T.

Trust me, if I COULD CARPOOL, I WOULD! But I can’t. And, note to you self-righteous mothers – carting your kid around ain’t carpooling! By those standards, carpooling with my wallet or my purse would be just as well – they’re both things I have to take with me!

I am so aggravated that I have to pay taxes for upkeep on a lane that I can’t even USE! It’s not fair, right and it echoes the liberal mind of “people should do the right thing.” – well, they should but they won’t and now you’ve cause a bigger problem. Well done….dips*its.